Known conscious sedation systems include a conscious sedation system disclosed in United States Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0017299. In that system, a controller generated a request for a predetermined response from a patient. The request was in the form of an auditory command which was received by a patient through an earphone in the ear of the patient or was in the form of a vibration signal which was received by the patient through a vibrator in a handpiece which was attached to the hand of the patient. The predetermined response to the request was the pushing of a button on the handpiece by the patient which closed a switch sending a signal to the controller. The controller analyzed medical information from the patient (such as blood pressure and other information) and analyzed the time delay between the request and the response to determine a level of sedation of the patient. When the time delay between the request and the response increased, the controller determined that the patient was in a deeper level of sedation and decreased the flow of a conscious sedation drug to the patient. It is known to have a number of volume settings for the auditory command and to initially manually raise the volume setting before the start of conscious sedation until a fully conscious patient says he or she can hear the auditory command. It is also known that doctors using a similar system have themselves asked the patient by name to squeeze the handpiece.
What is needed is an improved conscious sedation system and/or component thereof and/or method therefor. This invention addresses those needs lacking in known conscious sedation systems and/or components thereof and/or methods therefor.